


Magic of the Seventh Dawn

by Anonymous



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: (kinda sorta) - Freeform, Gen, for: darkforetold, magical girl au, or: ARR if minfilia was the magical girl to save the day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23902513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Sometimes, young people can wake to magic, and thus join the fight against the Shadows.So goes the usual story. Complete with a frilly dress, and powers that don't need crystals to do, and festivals that go wrong.Minfilia joins their ranks. Entirely by surprise. She doesn't get the frilly dress until later.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4
Collections: Anonymous, May-U Fic Exchange 2020





	Magic of the Seventh Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [darkforetold](https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkforetold/gifts).



Minfilia finally knows why she dreaded this day under the blooming trees.

There is a new start, yes, the first one she feels she’s truly had since… since then. The parade, her family, the dreams, Thancred. Her brother has not been shadowing her for a while, not after their fight, and much less now she has Tataru as a friend; she still wishes she had him here for this. To tell her she still looks like herself in the new uniform, to remind her not to doze off in class, or to not keep gossiping with Tataru all through it (even if Tataru is far, far better at maths than she is).

Or, as it were, to kick away the Shadows scrabbling at her feet. She gets one, swings her backpack at another. Shrieks when its spindly claws latch on, two of them firm and the other four shivering in the air like an upside-down bug’s. Minfilia throws her bag blindly; pure luck has it smack another Shadow between its bulging eyes, but now she’s got nothing. The first one- is it the first one, she can’t tell- closes the distance and jumps again, this time with company.

She brings her arms up to cover her chest and face. Closes her eyes. Braces for impact, ready to push it away or roll or something. It never comes.

Minfilia lowers her arms to find a barrier around her, patterned like the silks her mother wore, gleaming a blue brighter than the sky’s. The Shadow bonks and bonks and bonks its head against the shimmering wall, a fly too stupid to realize that it isn’t open and it won’t be. Light ripples after every impact, burns away bits of it like ash. She expects it to feel hot when she touches it, but it doesn’t. She doesn’t expect it to glow brighter under her fingertips, harmless as it is, and when she gives it a light push it surges forwards as fast as Thancred is on his bike. Faster, blinding light and falling stars.

The Shadow goes flying, bounces once, fades as the light burns it through. For a moment, it is silent.

Then Minfilia remembers she is heading to her first day of school, that there are plenty other students also being bitten and torn and who knows what else Shadows do, and she turns to help. Or try to help. She has to be still to cast a barrier, Ala Mhigan mosaics running up from the ground as they run along her mind, and remain still to push it forwards. Slow as it is, it is better than nothing, and if no one better-practiced in magic shows up then it still might get her somewhere safe.

She gets Thancred after five minutes. His clothes aren’t the school uniform. She has never seen him wear anything so fancy, not even counting the times she’s seen him chasing girls. In his hands shine sharp daggers, faster than wind and tearing apart the creatures like so many leaves in the breeze.

He crashes against one of her barriers and almost falls flat on his tail. A knife goes up, holds still as they both see each other, falls down.

“I guess now you know,” he says. Picks himself up, spins to throw one of his knives at the back of a Shadow about to get a fleeing girl from behind, and with a motion that looks like he’s drawing from his long, decorative sleeves draws another just like the first.

“What?”

He runs off. Minfilia follows, stopping once to push another of her barriers at one of the last Shadows- oh, last? Since when?- and tears off to follow Thancred. He’s faster cleaning up than she is, and faster running. If Minfilia was as nice as she always is, she’d say it was his Athletics club; Minfilia knows it’s also his shoplifting. But he can’t outrun his sister, and he’s not dressed for his Athletics club, and anyways no one can run that fast in heels.

Thancred is a magic-user, and his outfit has black, shiny boots with tall heels.

“Thancred! What do I know?”

* * *

Since the world has been the world, there has been magic. Just as there is light and warmth from the sun, or life from earth and water. There is no end- or if there is, Minfilia has never been able to think of it, so there might as well not be- and there is nothing left untouched by it. Crystals of every color are manifestations of this magic, and there is much and more that they can be used for. Energy, calling Thancred to pick her up from her goldsmithing club workshop hours, jewelry and trinkets.

People just don't often use it themselves. Can’t, really; she’s heard from Thancred’s friends that maybe once upon a time everyone was able to do it, but it might as well be a fairy tale. Still, some people are born able to do small tricks. Thancred’s friend Urianger always believed Minfilia’s dreams were some form of that magical gift, and she’s always wanted it to be, but she never thought it counted all that much. 

Some people have the ability awoken, and that’s where magic-users come in. Gaudy, brilliant fighters that defeat the Shadows- those also come in now too, come to think of it, though they have been a part of the world since about as long as people have been- and some other things. Bigger things that Minfilia only dreams of, or sees in fantasy Ul’dahn films, or hears Urianger talk about when he’s been studying literature again. 

She’d lie if she said she never wanted to be one. She has sketches- hers, and Tataru’s- of outfits she’d like to wear. Magic she’d like to do. Things she’d like to ask the soft, lilting voice in her dreams if she ever got the chance.

So now, Minfilia tries spinning around in her room. That’s how it’s done properly, not Thancred’s practical “miming putting a mask on and snapping his fingers”. Tries focusing on her magic, except that there are no Shadows for it, and Tataru is sitting and swaying slightly as she tries and tries and fails.

“Do you want me to try and pull on your leg?” Tataru asks, a brand new outfit sketched and tossed aside. The skirt has a design similar to that of her barrier’s, and Tataru thought it might help to get the dress if she can make it look like her spells, but so far it hasn’t. Neither did it help to put Tataru’s floppy hat on and toss it off dramatically, or to try a catchphrase. Though that had indeed been silly, and they had laughed for a while. Better that than dwelling on how their first day of their second-year of highschool had had a Shadow attack large enough to be in the news and half their classes cut. The rest had gone to homework, which they had decided to ignore in favor of trying to get Minfilia into her magical-user clothes and trying to convince Thancred to order food for dinner.

Instead, he had gone to Urianger’s, and he had not returned.

“No,” Minfilia answers after a bit, dropping on the bed. Her notebooks bounce up, and she’s reminded that it is a lot of homework, she will certainly get more tomorrow, and she will still want to try and do other things than maths and introduction to literature when she gets home.

“Pull on your hair? Wait, no, that would actually hurt a lot more.”

“I think the leg would hurt worse, I still have it scratched up.”

“True. I think Carbuncle doesn’t even do things like that to me when I try and pick him up…”

“That’s because he doesn’t like being picked up.”

“But he’s a big fluffy cat! That’s what you do with them!”

“Is it?”

“I’m sure of it,” Tataru says, joining Minfilia on the bed. “More sure than I am that all magic-users have their pretty garments. Maybe it’s just a Thancred thing?”

“... the other team we saw on the news also had some, didn’t they?”

“But they arrived with those clothes on I think.”

Minfilia frowns, and shuts off the notebook with one of her designs. Looks for another one with the worst of the maths, long exercises that aren’t too hard but are still ten whole pages of them.

“Let’s try and remember while we get these done?”

Tataru nods, standing up to find her hat before finding her maths notebook and her pen. They’re opening up with just some algebra to remind them of what they most likely forgot over the summer, and their noses scrunch as they realize it.

“Alright. So if we have a system with 2x plus 3y minus 5 equals…”

* * *

It happens again on Friday, leaving the goldsmithing club with Tataru.

Minfilia hears another student scream, runs towards the sound. When she finds him, some new kid she doesn’t know, he’s on the ground, scrambling back as a pack of six or so slavering Shadows nip and clatter at his heels. 

Her barriers flare up. One push, and one insect-hound falls. Another stops the next one from rushing her. Push, bring up another in a quick flash of tile, find jaws too close. The spell strikes the Shadow under its jaw and it whines when it is pushed back.

Tataru shouts at the stunned boy, gets him to rally enough to get up and get out of there. Then she’s picking up Minfilia’s backpack and running back to the workshop, with a last “I’ll ring Thanced from there!” to see her off.

Shove her barrier away. The flash of light is fast; one hound falls, but another jumps aside. Then Minfilia sees the man, or what looks like a man, standing among the Shadows. They do not attack him, nor does he seem particularly distressed. His face is concealed behind a full, black mask- maybe it’s not even a he, but he looks Thancred-sized so that’s her best guess- and when his Shadows fade he does not react.

Minfilia shifts so she stands facing him directly. Raises a barrier, sends it forwards with all the strength she can put behind it.

A new Shadow claws up from the ground, jaws opening wide. Her light dispels it almost as quickly as it is summoned, and Minfilia gasps at seeing her magic stopped that way. Again, again; the hounds fall all one-by-one, until it is her and the man and the empty street outside of the goldsmithing club workshop.

Steps ring out, far too loud. Clicking. Thancred’s heels, and then Thancred himself rushing at the speed of wind towards the man with his daggers out.

Another chittering hound bursts from the masked man’s magic, lunges at Thancred. Minfilia’s not fast enough, her barrier crashing like glass against someone’s entry gate with a tinkling like bells. Thancred’s knives are true, slamming into the chitin and breaking it apart, but by then it’s too late. The man has left, and no amount of running up and down the street will reveal him.

“Are you well?”   
  


“Where’s Tataru? Is she alright?”

“At the workshop still, she-” “Does she have my things?” “-has your things.”

“That’s good. I’m well, Thancred, but what was that?”

“...” He looks away. Both of them know that the man won’t be there anymore, but Minfilia finds herself looking anyways.

“Thancred?”

“I don’t know, but Urianger thinks he’s seen them before.”

Minfilia frowns. Reaches out to grab her brother’s arm, and leads him physically towards the workshop. He doesn’t startle, doesn’t do much but follow with a squawk of her name, and then-

“Minfilia, let me change.”

“It’s just Tataru, and she knows how you look.”

“You told her?”

“No but I think she figured it out.”

“... that’s fair,” Thancred sighs, and tugs his arm out of Minfilia’s grasp regardless. Leans back, tries to shove his hands into pockets that aren’t there and has to settle for the belts that carry his daggers’ sheathes. It is, Minfilia is only a bit loathe to admit, kind of a cool look with his windswept hair and all the pomp of a magic-wielder outfit.

“How did you get that?”

“Urianger insisted. He’s… also in on this, and he said that if we were going to be a team we really should have the looks for it. I don’t see the point-”

“You have to show me.”

Thancred truly stops then. Looks at her like she’s not Minfilia, but some strange girl with her face and her voice, speaking gibberish. Then he sighs, and with all the disregard of an elder brother, saunters past her.

“Not now. We still have to get your things from Tataru, and get home. Or I won’t be able to get our cooking done before it’s too late to have any dinner.”

“Weren’t we going to F’lhaminn’s today?”

“All the more reason to hurry up, I skipped changing out of my sports gear to come help.”

Minfilia scrunches her nose, shoving past him and turning into the building. “I don’t know why you try to impress her so much…”, she says as she feels around for the light switch, all this time and she still struggles to remember where it is. With the lights on, she finds Tataru, and the three of them head home.

* * *

Minfilia gets Tataru to cover for her. She can forge the Nurse’s signature well enough to get paid for it, and Tataru will get her a copy of whatever the day’s lesson is for biology. Wedge owes her a favor, or perhaps he’s just starry-eyed for her. Either way, Minfilia has two full periods to herself.

She goes up the stairs to the school library with her eyes peeled either way. Just in case other students are heading to the bathroom or actually going to the Nurse’s Office. 

Urianger is easy to find once there. She finds the fiction section, almost on instinct, and then finds the second-closest group of couches. There are no windows close at hand, only shelves bracketing the low table and low, plump seats. Tall and all-limbs, Urianger should be ill-fitting there, but he looks comfortable. Below his feet rest two backpacks, even if Minfilia cannot immediately find any company for him. The book he has open is easily thicker than his wrist. He is focused on it, thick glasses reflecting the lamplight with some degree of ominousness.

She stops stalling with a straightening of her back. 

“Urianger?”

He looks up. He is not unknown to her, though Minfilia doesn’t think they’ve ever spoken face to face before now.

“Yes, young lady Waters?”

“Thancred says you have taught him much of using magic.” 

Urianger startles. Pushes up his glasses- by the outside edges, with both hands, Minfilia notes, and decides to tell Tataru later- and squints at her.

“I was aware of these new developments. However, he thought it better not to involve you in such-”

“I will get involved. Fighting the Shadows; that’s what magic-users do, don’t we? So why was there a masked man in a hood guiding them?”

He purses his lips. Closes his thick book, only to open one of the backpacks and pull out another one, just as thick as the previous one. A little peek inside reveals what she presumes to be his backpack is full of books, and scattered worksheets. Some done, some undone, some just scribbled over. Minfilia watches Urianger quickly rifle through the book, only to then turn it around with a page wide open.

A man much like the one she saw is drawn upon the page. The detailing on the robe is slightly different, and this one is wreathed in ice instead of chittering insect-hounds. But Minfilia thinks them much the same, and nods to Urianger.

“Just like that one, kind of. Who are they?”

“Not who but what, young lady Waters,” Urianger speaks, turning the page away from the drawing. “It is believed they are but stronger Shadows, though unfortunately that is limited to fiction. Rare indeed it is that anyone has thought to study these mysterious beings, aggressive as they are, for they do not impinge upon the usage of magic, for common folk and magic-users alike.”

“Is that why you have so many books?”

“Yes, and-”

An upperclassman bursts in. Pale, tall, with her hair in a high tail and a body that speaks to being in some other athletics team. Not in Thancred’s, or Minfilia would know her, and she bodily drags in a smaller girl almost under her arm, blonde hair mussed and jacket rumpled.

  
“Urianger! Mikoto here says that she can translate that old folk story you found- also who is this? Has the fantasy book club gotten a new member?”

His face reddens. Urianger pushes up his thick glasses, though not much, and clears his throat. “Moenbryda, I believe-”

“Sorry,” and this Moenbryda sets down the other girl, presumably Mikoto, on the free couch. Up close, she is stunningly tall. “Welcome to the Circle of Knowledge, Mikoto and…?”

“Minfilia Waters, a pleasure to meet you.”

“Waters like the… he runs everything from a hundred to four hundred in track?”

“Yes, he’s my brother.”

Moenbryda grins, turns around. There are no more of the low-lying couches, or none that Minfilia can see, and she snaps her fingers to draw attention to herself.

“I’ll fetch us chairs then, and you can tell me just how did he fall in with Urianger while we get to the bottom of this, yes?”

She has only two full periods. And then she really should go to her goldsmithing club, because she promised to fill in Tataru with what happened, but also Tataru wouldn’t forgive her if she didn’t tell her everything about these other friends of Thancred’s that aren’t Miss F’lhaminn from two doors down or Jacke and V’kebbe from athletics.

So Minfilia nods, and lets Moenbryda sit her down in another low-lying couch, and listens to Mikoto’s narration of an old, old Doman poem about the Lord of Snakes and the Samurai Equal to Heaven.

* * *

Tataru tells her over the phone that yes, she has Minfilia’s notes, and yes, she was missed in goldsmithing but it wasn’t a big deal because everyone was busy catching up with algebra anyways.

And they should catch up with algebra, except that that’s for friday and it’s just wednesday and besides Minfilia’s dedication had left them with only two exercises more to do. And they only went to “e”, so it wasn’t the worst, and they’d settle it tomorrow. Thancred had track, so he couldn’t tell them off, and then Tataru had cut off the call, yelling at Carbuncle to not jump on the side table.

Minfilia hangs out after the third slow beep. Thancred has a night shift at the closest convenience store, and he will not be home for a while. She stares at the fridge, debating whether she’s hungry enough to reheat their lunch’s leftovers, or if they will still be good for tomorrow and thus she wouldn’t feel bad not eating them, and decides that she’s not hungry and really only wants to sleep.

She closes her eyes.

Opens her eyes. The street outside looms before her, faintly lit with a crisp, clean blue. There is no moon in the sky, nor does Minfilia expect it to be.

Just to be sure, she reaches out to brush her hand over the leaves by F’lhaminn’s door. Her hand goes through, the leaves glowing with that peaceful blue light, and she knows she is dreaming.

Minfilia starts walking. It is not important where she starts, only where she goes. With who she goes. She’s never been alone for long, but also she’s never started out just outside her own house.

_ A solar, underground, and she remembers seeing her long, buckled skirt and wanting to twirl. To see it fan out around her, to hear the clink of metal at her legs and by her face from a hairclip. There’s paperwork in a language she doesn’t understand, but she knows it means that something called Primals draws close to someplace called The Shroud, two names which she cannot pronounce, and she should send someone, do something… _

The steps find her. Minfilia turns to face the source of them, finds a woman only a bit younger than her mother. Dressed in floating, glowing blue like the rest of her dream; long hair shifting as if she walked through water instead of air.

“Hello.”

“My dear Minfilia,” she starts. “I have not seen you in a while.”

“Not since the parade,” Minfilia answers and looks away. The woman rests a hand on her shoulder, just like her mother used to do, and Minfilia hears-feels-thinks her smile.

“Not since then. How have things been? Has school treated you well? Your new friends?”

Just like a mother. And Minfilia wants to tell her, wants to fill the space between her house and what she thinks is Thancred’s convenience store, with the stylized cactuar-man pointing to the door.

“And I’m a magic-user now, did you know? I still don’t have my dress, not like Thancred does, but I have my magic. Shields like your dress,” she says, and raises a hand to summon a shield.

The blue mother coos, and smiles as the light plays with the repeating patterns, flowing silk. Proud, and a touch sad. 

“I missed such a special moment, Minfilia. Please forgive me.”

“It’s alright,” she smiles, pushing the shield away. “You will see plen--”

The Shadow-man flinches away from the blast of light, blue-white shearing forwards and striking the cactus-man solid in the chest. Minfilia feels a hand on her shoulder, the blue mother standing by her side stiffly, and then she runs forwards.

Follow the man through the door, into the bright-white light of the store and the neat rows of products. Lose him between the instant ramen and the emergency packets of laundry soap, catch him again vaulting over the cash register-

“Thancred!”

Minfilia summons her shield, pushes it away. The light sails clear through the blue mother, the counter, Thancred himself. The Shadow-man is gone, and she looks around for him. All around, all over.

Thancred stares ahead, through her, no matter how much she shouts.

Minfilia opens her eyes when the doorbell rings.

* * *

The convenience store was robbed last night.

Thancred is missing.

Miss F’lhaminn has agreed to let her stay with her. She has not insisted Minfilia move her things to her house, but she has asked that she leaves at least a couple changes of clothes there. Just in case she really wants to stay there for the night. There’s a spare toothbrush for her, and a spare bedroom. Minfilia knows better than to ask; surely, Miss F’lhaminn had another parade like hers.

The blue mother has not left Minfilia alone for long this time, but she is not talkative. Tataru has not let Minfilia fall asleep without calling at least once, when she’s not marched over to Miss F’lhaminn’s house, but she’s no help. Not without magic, no matter how good Tataru is at throwing various things at Shadows when they find them together.

Moenbryda distracted the police long enough for her and Urianger to get a good, long look at the convenience store, with its unbroken glass door and gouged countertop, and between the both of them and their own evidence they believe Minfilia’s claims. It had to be magic that took Thancred, and no body means it can’t have been the Shadows. They’re not smart enough, or clean, except when they themselves fade.

They don’t let her be alone either. Urianger invites her to the library often, and when she doesn’t have goldsmithing club she takes him up on it. Moenbryda walks her home after her own athletics practice, and that’s how Minfilia finds that she’s a magic-user too, with a large hammer and a deep blue dress.

_An axe_ , her mind’s eye corrects, _and there should be chainmail too, and tattoos. The same glee as she vaults at a Shadow and splits it apart in one blow._

The Circle of Knowing has more members than Thancred, Urianger and Moenbryda. There are two girls, a pair of upperclassmen in dresses and sneakers, Y’shtola with her hair in tails and Y’mithra with her hair in a bun and someone else’s varsity jacket. Magic-users all, Minfilia notes, and when she asks after Mikoto Moenbryda gives an apologetic shrug.

“She thought we were just translating stories. I can ask her to come, if you liked having her here.”

“There is no need,” she says, and sits in one of Moenbryda’s chairs. “Though I did like hearing the Doman stories…”

“They were certainly very interesting,” Y’shtola pipes up, pulling up a small book. Comics, which is very strange for the other girl, but a cursory look shows that it’s just another rendition of the tale of the Crimson-Bird and the Samurai. The page is not of Minfilia’s favorite part, where she manages to revive him with a cloak made of her own feathers, but it shows them duelling a mighty yokai. Hooded, with moonsilver claws. The face is concealed with paper-talismans, like the ones Mikoto has. “And the original takes far fewer artistic liberties than this adaptation.”

“You just say that because the Crimson-Bird is a better healer than you are, Shtola.”

“Moenbryda, is that a complaint? Because I can leave you again with those scratches from that pack of Shadows we caught going to get some new shoes.”

“Not at all! But you still try to copy her use of the flute.”   
  


“And she won’t stop, Moenbryda, she still can’t play on key half the time-” “Mithra!” “What, sister, it is true.”

It wasn’t them, in the Solar, or not only them. She’s missing two, no, at least three…

The conversation goes around and around, the room fading into gentle blue. Urianger and Y’shtola debate the finer points of what the Shadow-men do, while Moenbryda and Y’mithra keep off in their corner discussing Y’shtola’s lack of skill at the flute…

_ … Urianger knows what the Shadow-men are, and his tomes are carefully detailed with notes old and new that track their methods, their believed supply routes, what they have left untapped. The great Shadow Leviathan cannot be summoned yet, something called the Maelstrom has been very successful at dismantling the beast-supply lines, but that’s only on one front and there are no news from somewhere called O’ghomoro, too silent to be good and yet there is no way to know until Y’shtola returns… _

… Track practice is quiet without Thancred, and while people know he is a missing person because it was in the news, they’ll soon have to give up and find someone to fill in for him and he’s in two different sprints. Urianger still has the notes he will be missing, and Y’shtola adds that she has his biology and chemistry notes since Urianger isn’t with him for those…

_ Thancred is quiet, his pursuit of the Shadow-men stalled after losing them at some other place called Haukke, crawling with their minions, and a friend had gone in- _

“Minfilia? You are very pale.”

Y’shtola’s voice breaks her focus. The room is still faintly blue, the other girl’s eyes impossibly bright.

“Young lady Waters, did you remember to eat?” 

Minfilia shakes her head. Returns bit by bit, looking around the room. No spectral guardian, no Moenbryda- already off to fetch water, by the looks of it, or a protein bar- Y’mithra wrapping her best friend’s varsity jacket over Minfilia’s shoulders.

“Well, that we can fix. Good thing we were not sparring.”

“What did I miss?”

“Nothing of import; we know little more of the Shadow-men than we did when last we met Monday, save that they do seem to summon only insectoid or arachnid creatures now…”

“They summon them, yes? So if we leave some to their own devices, one could lead us back to the person?”

Y’shtola purses her lips, reviews her own copy of the Samurai’s adventures. Urianger does much the same, except his favored book is one by some Ilsabardian dramaturge about a monster-slayer and the great beast of crystal.

“I don’t think it will be in there; these are far smaller than those.”

“For now.”

“For now. But we don’t need them to be big to fetch Thancred, don’t we?”   
  


“That’s…”

Moenbryda returns, a protein shake in each of her hands, and she offers Minfilia the strawberry one. She takes it, sitting up straight and letting the borrowed jacket fall off.

“I heard something about fetching Thancred?”

Urianger nods, but it’s Y’shtola that speaks. Minfilia still watches him close his mouth like a fish, eyes wide behind his spectacles.

“It is not a bad plan, and it may well tell us something the old stories do not.”

* * *

The plan then, is to fan out. They still meet every monday, and every thursday after Moenbryda’s and Thancred’s club meeting (it will be Thancred’s again, Minfilia knows). Otherwise, they go out and explore. Shadows do not attack all too often, and between the five of them in three groups…

“Two,” Urianger says somberly. “Thancred would not want you to go alone-”

“But then who would check around my house? Moenbryda and you live too far away, and so does Miss Matoya.”

“... it would not be inconvenient for me to accompany you home, and Moenbryda will be glad for the company.”

“But we’d leave the east side without any watchers, and the other teams won’t know to leave Shadows alive to follow them home.”

Fan out. Meet every monday and late every thursday, and the further they go out the easier they’ll find Thancred. Or at least faster.

“If something were to happen to you-” 

“Tataru’s gotten very good at throwing things, Urianger, I promise and I have shields.”

He sighs. Y’shtola looks between the pair of them and shakes her head.

“She makes a good point. Would that we had more members, so none had to go without company-”

“Could you not ask Y’mithra to let us borrow the company of her Wolf to-”

“Absolutely not, I already am struggling to bring her to the Circle meetings without protest.”

Urianger sighs, soft and coupled with a tired push to his glasses. Up above his eyes for him to rub at the bridge of his nose. Minfilia puts one of her hands on his shoulder, smiles as bright as she can.

“I’ll take care of myself. See you on monday?”

“I most dearly ask that you be on time and well for it, young lady Waters.”

* * *

She dreams again that night, though the blue mother only remains seated by the foot of her bed.

Her eyes are proud, but the rest of her is sad. Minfilia doesn’t know how she knows this, though she does know to scramble out of bed. Her body remains sleeping there- so now she knows why Thancred didn’t see her then- but she herself sits by her ghostly mother’s side and lets her pet her hair.

“You are quiet tonight.” Minfilia speaks, quiet even though no one can hear.

“Only thoughtful,” she says, and parts a section of hair. Light as anything, her fingers part it again and twine it over and over in a fine braid. “It is not the first time I have seen you like this.”

“It isn’t?”

“No, my dear one. Your mother is very old, and very fond of you.”

Minfilia frowns. Stays very still, letting her finish the braid before turning to face her. Unfazed, the mother parts another section of hair on the other side of Minfilia’s face, and starts the whole process again.

“Do you know if I succeed then?”

“I do.”

“Would you tell me?”

Her hands pause. The braid lingers, half done, for a breath before she continues.

“Would you change course if I told you?”

“No.”

“Then, of course I see you succeed.”

“... they’ll come loose with nothing to tie them, you know.”

“You are a very still sleeper, Minfilia. I think you will manage to keep them just fine.”

“You didn’t braid my hair then,” she says, looking at her sleeping form and watching her with very loose hair.

Her mother smiles. Minfilia has never seen her mischievous, but this is the closest she can get, she supposes. The braids are set loose, framing her face, and Minfilia thinks that they look a bit like what the blue mother herself wears.

“You will see in the morning, my dear. Now rest. I do not want to keep you from your maths test tomorrow.”

“Tataru and I studied plenty for it, we will be fine.”

“But even better if you sleep.”

Minfilia feels the press of lips to the top of her head, soothing as anything. When she closes her eyes, she finds easy sleep.

* * *

The test is expectedly easy. Tataru grouses about it afterwards, the two of them comparing their answers exercise by exercise. Nearly the same, all in all, though Minfilia didn’t write three decimal numbers. And she hopes it is Tataru that is wrong, and the division came before the multiplication for question five.

As it is, they walk together. Not home- Tataru doesn’t want to go home and do more classwork just off a test- and they don’t have a goldsmithing club meeting today, and the park trees are no longer in bloom. Elsewhere then, and they chatter about picking bubble tea or that place with the coffee biscuits when they hear the shrieks.

Then a Shadow goes flying.

Minfilia rushes in, halts, takes aim. The barriers are fast now, shooting up in mosaic-silk and then forwards as she pushes to break another Shadow’s charge to a boy maybe Thancred’s age. He swings his backpack with wild abandon, catching more of the insect-like creatures and bashing them against the ground, sending them flying into walls. Next to him, a girl with her hair in a tail and a frilly, long red dress throws kick after kick.

“METEOR WHY ARE YOU SLOWING DOWN”, the girl yells, a spinning kick sweeping two Shadows away and into dust. Minfilia beats this Meteor boy’s answer, one of her own barriers racing forwards to catch a Shadow leaping at the girl’s shoulder.

“Oh! That’s why. She doesn’t look like a Shadow-” another, Meteor putting the whole of his body behind a swing of his sports backpack and sending a Shadow flying, only to bounce against Minfilia’s latest shield. It shatters, but it takes the creature with it, so it works. “-does she?”

He shakes his head. 

Minfilia shakes her head.

The last Shadow begins to run away, realizing that for all it came with a large pack, two magic-wielders are indeed too much to handle.

“Wait-” but the girl has already kicked it clear off into the sky, the Shadow fading into smoke and sparkles as it sails high, high off the ground.

“I was going to track it…”

“Track it? What do you mean?”

“They’re summoned, so with some friends we thought that maybe if we followed one back to whoever--”

“They’re summoned? Like my dress? But then wouldn’t they be just as easily dismissed?”

She spins to demonstrate, ending with a formal bow like Mikoto sometimes does, when they’ve sparred. The brilliant red fades, leaving a uniform similar to Meteor’s, and he wordlessly hands her the backpack back.

“Thank you. But why would you track it?”

“We don’t know the first, and…”

She hesitates. Looks from this girl, to her friend that hasn’t said a word, to Tataru tearing up the street to find her.

“... what do you know of the boy that disappeared?”

“Thancred Waters?” And it’s Meteor that speaks, nearly jumping, and the girl turns to him with an amused expression. “He races against us often, what happened to him?”

Minfilia explains. Gives them Urianger’s number, just to be sure; he can’t get too mad, if they want to help. Meetings are mondays and thursdays after club hours.

“We’ll see you there then. I’m Lyse, by the way.”

* * *

Moenbryda and Lyse get on like butter on toast. They train together, eat together, drape themselves on each of Urianger’s sides and read over his shoulder. Sometimes it is Y’shtola’s; once, it is Y’mithra’s, with Lyse remarking that she knows her Wolf, he’s on her school’s soccer team, and that’s why the two Y sisters were familiar.

Meteor is far quieter. It comes from being the only one who cannot wield magic in the room, perhaps. He doesn’t join in when the others talk, but he is far better at tabletop games than anyone wants to admit, and he doesn’t shy from joining Lyse and Minfilia in their spars.

“If you can hit me trying to hit you, then the Shadows will be far easier. Or that Shadow-man of yours,” he says, and braces himself. Lunges, throws himself at Minfilia without her shields.

Unlike the Shadows, he’s capable of dodging, of pulling back and of feints. He ducks low, rolls to the side when one of the barriers is about to crash into him and send him tumbling away, and when he comes up he has one of Minfilia’s ankles in his hand.

Meteor pulls her up by the ankle, and she shrieks. Flails, hard enough that he cannot hold her one-handed, stretches her hands out to catch her before she falls-

The barrier sparkles, brilliant blue tiles. Minfilia goes clear through.

She lands in a pile of skirts that wasn’t there before, pristine white and frilled. A pair of long pink ribbons frame her face, braids falling down her chest, and when she stretches her arms forwards to look at them properly ribbons trail up to her elbow. Soft pink, and looking at them closely reveals the same design as her barrier.

“Wow,” and then Meteor’s hand is helping her up. “Was that supposed to happen?”

“No, and Tataru is going to be so mad that she missed it.” 

As a test, she spins around. The skirts flounce widely, light as anything, and she feels the rustle of petticoats follow her twirl. Meteor steps back, motions with a hand for her to do it again, and Minfilia does.

“It looks cute,” he says, and rubs the back of his head. “... though very different from Lyse’s.”

Minfilia laughs, watching Meteor settle back into something approaching a sparring stance. 

“But you’re not getting out of this just because you look cute. Moenbryda and Lyse both told me you could use some speeding up with your spells, so that’s why I’m here.”

“I thought it was just because I also was going to help you with your English homework.”

“That too, but we can do that later. It’s just the one exercise, I promise.”

He darts forwards again. 

* * *

Tataru is expectedly mad over the phone. She forgives Minfilia a little when she gets Miss F’lhaminn to take a picture with the small camera and send it to her, forgives her a lot more when the older woman thinks that Tataru might want to see the switch.

It is, admittedly, far less eye-catching than the animated series or drawn media make it out to be. But Minfilia does like the idea of walking through one of her barriers to get the new look, and if she’s right then maybe she can do it with a simple step. Twirling for it should be easy.

It might make tracking the Shadow-man harder, but she’ll worry about it later. Minfilia thinks it wouldn’t feel right if she found him and Thancred without her costume on. Besides, she wants Thancred to see her in it, and maybe finally stop worrying. His sister will be a magic-wielder and look like one, and they’ll make a great team.

She falls asleep with that thought. Wakes with it.

The room is glowing faintly blue. By her side, the blue mother sits with her hands folded over her lap.

“Did you like my gift?”

“Yes, thank you.” A pause. Minfilia looks to her, with her veil and her long robes. “Were they yours?”

“No. You deserve your own, dear one.”

“Did you give Thancred’s his?”

“Once upon a time.”

“He’s only a year older than me…”

The blue mother smiles. Minfilia leans against her, and feels her soft arm wrap around her shoulders.

“Were you ever a magic-wielder like us too?”

“Once upon a time. But I do not think you will find me as easily as you find the Shadow-men in books.”

“And if I wanted to?”

She hums, soft as anything, and starts to pet Minfilia’s hair. Slowly, so slowly, like she’s meant to distract and lull her back to sleep. Minfilia refuses to, at least until she’s heard her mother’s answer.

“What do you want to find first?”

“Thancred, of course.”

“Then find him first, my dear, and perhaps afterwards you can find me.”

Even without wanting to, Minfilia nods off.

* * *

_   
She dreams of Meteor, fighting the Shadow-man with an axe. Charred ruins surround them, twisted metal and the acrid smell of burning gasoline. There is no night-sky but that which the Shadow-man holds in his hands. Underneath his cowl, there is no chitinous mask; Thancred snarls at Meteor and throws handful after handful of pitch. _

_ Minfilia stands straight in her dream. Summons a barrier beneath her feet, the blue glow surrounding her and fading to give her her mother’s dress. _

_ Takes aim. Raises a barrier between Meteor and Thancred, and she makes sure that the barrier glows stronger than the sun, than her will, and holds it. Thancred’s shadows break against it, sputtering into ash, and his words are alien to her ears. _

_ When next Meteor rushes forwards, Minfilia backs him up with a push. _

_ The barrier blooms in rainbows. For a moment, they are not in the broken ruins, but somewhere wreathed in starlight and her mother’s blue. _

_ Then the Shadow-man is nothing but ash, and Thancred- her Thancred, always her dearest brother- falls to the ground in an insensate pile. _

* * *

There is a small stretch of nothing, afterwards.

Meteor isn’t a magic-bringer. He still spars, still takes to swinging at Shadows with his backpack or his fists. If Lyse can use her kicks, and only her kicks, then there’s no reason his fists won’t work, even if he’d like Moenbryda’s axe more. 

Y’shtola and Y’mithra buy more books. They finish the Samurai Equaling Heaven series. After some debate, they start an adaptation of the Lunadark Warriors, and their quest to restore the Light to their world fallen by some Shadow-man’s machinations, presumably. This time, they don’t need Mikoto to translate or compare the original stories, but they still invite her. She doesn’t mind reading along, or Y’mithra being her chemistry partner for the term, so she stays. Dane Wolf comes only the one time, when the sisters take the entire Circle of Knowing shopping, and he volunteers to carry their bags in exchange for Y’mithra buying his lunch.

Tataru takes Minfilia to the movies, to goldsmithing club, and they both deliver a necklace set with a deep pink stone to Miss F’lhaminn. As thanks, they both say, for taking Minfilia under her wing this whole time. They still know she once had something like the Parade; they both still know better than to ask. Minfilia tells Tataru over the phone that she wears the necklace often, and Tataru laments that Carbuncle manages to keep taking the collar they both made for it off.

The flowers stop being in bloom. The sun grows fat and warm, with Shadows scurrying to hide, and being easy pickings. Minfilia waits for the sports festival as she’s always done, almost forgetting that Thancred won’t be running. But she won’t be alone, which is at least a sweet relief.

Urianger reads. Moenbryda hides his books so he will talk to her, spar with her, go cheer at her track competitions. She wins, much to everyone’s delight, and Lyse owes her ice-cream which she accepts with a smile. Meteor promises he won’t lose to Moenbryda’s team, and runs off to take his place for the 800 meters. Urianger recovers his book, and picks up various jackets and backpacks to let them sit down together to watch the last race.

There was a small stretch of nothing, so they don’t expect it.

The start-gun goes off. Meteor rushes forwards, building up a lead.

He slows to kick a Shadow off the track, then two, and then he’s surrounded on all sides.

Lyse and Moenbryda are on their feet first, switching clothes fast, tearing off. Kicks and bare-handed swings, heading towards Meteor first before he screams. The others, the others, he’s fine he’s- the next Shadow he throws straight at Moenbryda’s arm, the punch sending it bouncing off the ground- fine, seriously. A couple scratches, but nothing Urianger cannot heal, and where’s Y’shtola where’s-

Minfilia pulls up shield after shield, throwing them out nearly as fast as she can, trying to corral the Shadows in and guide them towards Lyse and the rest in the middle. Urianger helps, drawing small cards from his billowing sleeves and throwing them to slice and sink into the chitinous dark. They freeze where they stand, and become easier shots for Minfilia to take, for Moenbryda to cut.

There are many, but they start whittling them down. Bit by bit, pushing them into the track and letting Lyse go at them. Moving them away from the other runners, into the middle of the field, Minfilia’s shields hemming them all in. The blue tile flickers and melds with the blue sky, and the grass is trampled underfoot into slushing brown.

They almost don’t notice the Shadow-man standing in the middle, so terribly bored, until they are almost on top of him. Meteor takes the first step forwards, still in his uniform, and to everyone’s surprise speaks up.

“And how did you get here?”

He shrugs. Pulls his hood back, and speaks with a too familiar voice.

“Why would I not be here?” Thancred says, bitten off quick when Moenbryda charges him with all her fury.

A freshly-summoned Shadow makes her stop, her axe cleaving through it instead of the man holding Thancred. Again, again when Lyse joins the charge. Urianger freezes one in midair, letting Moenbryda close the gap again-

The blast of magic sends her flying, one of Urianger’s cards slowing her down before she goes too far, falls too hard. Lyse and Meteor recover, rolling back onto their feet- Lyse gets stopped by a Shadow, another, almost faster than she can kick, can move forwards.

Meteor waits. Goes slowly, fanning out. Minfilia catches his eye briefly, watches him nod, watches him round the Shadow-man as he would Y’shtola to steal a brief glance at her chemistry notes-

Minfilia snipes the Shadow about to fall on Lyse’s head. Snipes another one, buys her a bit of space. She’s not moving forwards, but she’s closer than Urianger and Moenbryda are, and relentless. 

-she cannot see Meteor now, so he must be behind the man, walking close-

Another Shadow, this one bursting almost below Lyse’s feet, and Minfilia’s barrier shielding her sends her flying off. Her shriek has Urianger catch her with his slowing cards, floating her down. The man smiles, but it isn’t Thancred’s as he turns to Minfilia-

-Meteor shouts, just for a brief moment, before he tackles Thancred to the ground.

Then it’s a scrabble, limbs and mud, and it stops being even a little bit like her dream for a moment. 

_ It will work just the same. _

The Shadow-man’s robes are gilded with spikes, his hands bristling with claws, and he tears at Meteor’s arm and shoulder nearly bad enough to shove him off. Minfilia rushes forwards, dodges an elbow-

_ I promised you could find me after you found Thancred, dear one. _

-with her hand to Thancred’s chest, Minfilia makes the barrier bloom.

* * *

Y’shtola says that the Samurai Equaling Heaven defeated the Azure Serpent with the force of his conviction. The blade was secondary; he just wanted the Serpent to remember the man he once wast and fight him with honor.

Y’mithra says it was more a matter of the barrier being summoned point-blank. Y’shtola argues, of course; point-blank is one thing, and she’s always been able to burn and push the Shadows away, but the master must’ve taken more. And anyways, nothing happened to Thancred, so it must’ve been Minfilia’s intent too.

Meteor simply said Thancred was too heavy to carry away, and then got Lyse and Moenbryda to replace him as the bearer. Also his shoulder hurt, and Y’shtola said she’d get to healing him once they were somewhere safely away from crowds.

Minfilia hears it all distantly. The air smells of summer and grass and sweat, not of burning gasoline. The sky is the clear blue of her barriers, of her other mother, of Moenbryda’s dress.

Wait. 

“Moenbryda-”

“We’ll change later, I promise.”

“We don’t have any other clothes for Thancred, don’t we?”

* * *

Thancred sleeps, in clothes Meteor took from the lost-and-found, in the library. Y’shtola had him laid out on all the low sofas put in a single line, magic surrounding him as she worked, and then she’d let him be.

“Well, he’s not wounded, so he must only be tired.”

“Do you really think that?”

“We’ve been running after Shadows for a while; he must’ve been setting them.”

“But we also had class…”

“And sleep, young lady Waters, and time to eat.”

“Won’t he be hungry later?”

“Moenbryda and Lyse may well have bought out every protein bar in the shop. We’ll be fine.”

Minfilia watches him sleep, still in her flouncy dress, and flops down to sit by the sofa nearest to his head. She can faintly listen to the bustle of people flowing back into the school grounds, teams looking for lost students or to ascertain the Shadows are gone. Magic thrumming through the air as other wielders run around, chasing the last stragglers away.

“Won’t we have to go help?”

“I do not think that we three will be missed. Not if Moenbryda and Lyse are as energetic as they usually are.”

Despite herself, Minfilia nods.

“Good. I want to be here when he wakes up.”

* * *

Tataru and her walk back from the goldsmithing workshop. There will be a faire soon, and they will have a stand to sell trinkets and things. Minfilia wants keychains; Tataru says earrings will be all the rage, now that the school has loosened up its restrictions and allowed clip-ons for daily use.

Wind rushes past them, halts by the turn. Thancred stands there, in his frilled dress-up, and waves. His cellphone is in his hand, the display still showing Y’shtola’s face as she hangs up.

“Y’shtola called; she says Lyse and her are held up by Shadows at the strip mall, inside the shoe store. Want to go give them a hand?”

With a flash of her barrier, Minfilia is in her mother’s dress, eyes gleaming blue.

“Of course!”


End file.
